Out of Joint: A Private and Public Story of Arthritis (American Lives) [Hardcover]

Mary Felstiner (Author)

Book Description

Series: American Lives | Publication Date: October 1, 2005

She begins, in the morning, by casing her joints: Can her ankles take the stairs? Will her fingers open a jar? Peel an orange? But it was not always this way for Mary Felstiner, who went to bed one night an active professional and healthy young mother, and woke the next morning literally out of joint. With wrists and elbows no longer working right, she’d discovered one of the first signs of rheumatoid arthritis, the most virulent form of a common disease. Out of Joint is her account of living through arthritis, a distinction she shares with seventy million Americans.

 

While arthritis pain affects one out of three Americans, this book is the first to tell the personal story of the nation’s most common yet neglected disease. Part memoir, part medical and social history, Out of Joint folds the author’s private experience into far-reaching investigations of a socially hidden ailment and of any chronic condition—how to handle love, work, sexuality, fatigue, betrayal, pain, time, mortality, rights, myths, and memory. Moving from the 1940s to the present, this story of one life with arthritis exposes little-known medical research and provocative social issues: alarming controversies over arthritis miracle drugs, intense demands concerning disability, and the surprising and disproportionate number of women affected by chronic illness. From this prize-winning historian comes a call for healing through history, a moving meditation on the way chronic conditions can be treated by enlisting the past.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Felstiner brings a feminist's eye and a historian's tool kit to this narrative of her decades-long struggle with rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a crippling autoimmune disease that afflicts more than two million Americans. Felstiner (To Paint Her Life: Charlotte Salomon in the Nazi Era), a professor of history at San Francisco State University, traces the growing scientific understanding of RA, from the earliest accounts in medical antiquity to the latest theories of how pregnancy might trigger the disorder. She touches on treatments, from antimalarial drugs through cortisone and the now-blackballed painkiller Vioxx. Part of the American Lives Series, edited by Tobias Wolff, Felstiner's memoir suffers at times from self-indulgent prose and tiresome metaphors. Yet the book's total effect is powerful, and her major chords strike true: RA is a devastatingly disabling condition with steep private and public costs; its disproportionate effects on women have not been adequately addressed; its social, political and interpersonal implications are significant. In the end, Felstiner's story is as much about the complexities of belonging;as a woman, a feminist, a Jew, an intellectual;as it is about her illness. So it has something to discover for any reader, pained joints or otherwise. 10 b&w photos.
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Review

"In her brilliant, poetic memoir Mary Felstiner blends her personal story with the larger and often hidden story of millions of Americans who suffer chronic pain and arthritic disabilities. A major achievement and a great read."oGerda Lerner, author of The Creation of Patriarchy, Why History Matters, and Fireweed "A startling, poignant depiction of the progression of arthritis and of the person who is afflicted. Written from the heart with great lucidity and power, this book will alter forever the way you think about chronic illness."oIrvin Yalom, MD, author of The Schopenhauer Cure: A Novel "Has there ever been a disease that is so widespread, about which there has previously been so little thoughtful writing? Mary Felstiner has created a landmark in the literature, as Susan Sontag did with her book about cancer."oAdam Hochschild, prize-winning author of Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves "Although this memoir is a mediation on illness, pain, suffering, loss, history and mortality, it does all these things charmingly and effortlessly. It is a quirky, brave, heartening book that is easy to curl up at night with, yet cannot be forgotten in the morning."oMelanie Thernstrom, author of The Dead Girl "Out of Joint remins us how the words we use as health professionals can have a profound negative effect on the recipient's appraisal of the stiuation... THis book is inspiring and easy to read."--Nursing Standard, November 1, 2006

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 222 pages
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press (October 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803220308
• ISBN-13: 978-0803220300
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,624,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Out of Joint but In Synch, February 27, 2006

By 

A. Wexler - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Out of Joint: A Private and Public Story of Arthritis (American Lives) (Hardcover)

Although I had intended to read Out of Joint slowly, chapter by chapter, once I began the momentum built until I stayed up extremely late one night to finish it. It is a gorgeous, haunting, painful, exhilarating, breathtaking book, and one that is as much poetry as powerful analysis. This is a deeply courageous book, one willing to stay inside the pain and the joints---I felt almost as if I were right in there, almost inside this body. The book conveys that bodily presence so beautifully, it is quite amazing. It also conveys both movement and stasis, a sense of the endlessness of pain, but through it all the movements of the author's mind, as she explored different facets of it, and in many different sites--library, clinic, home, mountainside, street, office, and classroom. I felt as if I were traveling along with her, on a sort of Pilgrim's Progress, on a quest, even if there is no ultimate resolution, though there are moments of release and exultation. This will become a classic text, not just about arthritis but about writing, and about memoir, and about the body. I hope it will be read widely everywhere. Many thanks for writing such a wise and generous and sensuous book, one that, even in the darkness, is full of light!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank You Mary Felstiner, February 19, 2006

By 

Katrina - See all my reviews

This review is from: Out of Joint: A Private and Public Story of Arthritis (American Lives) (Hardcover)

Finally, a book that addresses not only the physical effects but also the emotional effects of Rheumatoid Arthritis. Mary Felstiner graciously allows the reader to join her on an honest and difficult journey of pain and acceptance. She offers insight and understanding to a disease that does not get the attention it deserves. If you have an autoimmune disease or love someone that does, this book is a must read.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Investigation of Connectedness, March 14, 2006

By 

Harriet Chessman "harriet_chessman" (The Bay Area) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Out of Joint: A Private and Public Story of Arthritis (American Lives) (Hardcover)

I enjoyed this book so greatly. I love the way Mary Felstiner approaches the subject of joints, jointedness, connection, from such varied angles, using documents of cultural, personal, and medical history. Magnificent!! What a huge accomplishment this book represents. Apart from all else, I've learned a staggering amount from this gifted author about the body in a cultural context, and this has illuminated a lot of questions in my own life.